65 thoughts on “August 20, 2019: Misty Morning”

  1. It was foggy here today, too. The old-timers tell me that ninety days after a fog you'll get some precipitation. If so, we could be in for a rough November.

    3. Sooooo, we had a structural inspection if the purchase house today. Aaaaand we have held off on the MLS listing of our house pending the written report.

      Preliminary findings suggest there are foundation issues that might cost $30k-$100k to fix. Ugh.

      More to come tomorrow when we get the written report. But we are having a sadz tonight.

      2. Yikes. Just do what our seller did to us, fill the cracks with drywall mud and paint over them. Totally fixed forever.

  3. Are you talking the weather or my mental capacity. I do like one and not the other when it comes to fogginess'

  4. Natch.

    You'll notice we only included 18 of the 19, and the name we left out is one you likely aren't familiar with. You absolutely did not know Nick Anderson when the Twins signed him as an undrafted free agent in 2015, and you probably did not notice when they dealt him to Miami last November for a Minor League third baseman to avoid a 40-man roster crunch. (It's OK: Neither did we. Anderson didn't even rate a mention in the headline. The Minor League third baseman, Brian Schales, is hitting .189/.301/.378 in the Twins' system.)

    It's even OK if Anderson didn't make your radar when he was with Miami, because the Marlins are in last place, Anderson wasn't their closer, and his 3.92 ERA made it easy to miss the strikeouts he was piling up. (Though we tried to tell you in April.) But now that he's with the Rays, who acquired him on July 31 in an intra-state deal that also sent Trevor Richards to Tampa Bay and Ryne Stanek and prospect Jesús Sánchez to Miami, he demands your attention. He's the best reliever traded at the Deadline. He might be one of the best relievers in the game, and if he'd been in the AL all year, he'd be running a quiet Rookie of the Year case.

      1. So. Do. I.

        Disappointing move(s) by guys we were led to believe were instrumental in the analysis and development of pitching quality at their previous place(s) of employment.

        To put it crassly: ‘Wish in one hand and cr@p in the other...’

      2. I still don't get the Presley trade. The Twin Braintrust knew he had electric stuff and the issue was more about communicating that with him better. They also probably knew mid-year that they were going to can Molitor and his staff. Why not keep Presley around and see if the new manager, etc could get through to him about throwing his curve even more?

        1. I know. There were even Baseball prospectus articles about him!

          I know that contending this year was a surprise but it wasn't that shocking that they'd at least have a chance in this division.

        2. They also probably knew mid-year that they were going to can Molitor

          Did they? They extended him in the offseason.

          1. Well, they fired him after 1 year of that extension. I think the extension was the cost of doing business after getting to the Wild Card. I think by the time mid-season last year, they knew that Molitor and his staff wasn't going to implement their vision. It's not like they went into a massive tailspin after the trade deadline.

  5. How many of you would say that you’ve got a terrible supervisor? A colleague recently stated that 80% of managers are bad at managing. I think that’s a rather pessimistic view, but what do I know.

    1. Let's see:

      Job 1 (16 years old): One bad manager, one good manager
      Job 2 (18 years old): Two good managers
      Job 3 (19 years old): Two good, one bad
      Job 4 (23 years old): Two bad
      Job 5 (25 years old): Two bad (and mean)
      Job 6 (31 years old): Had about six different managers here, all excellent. Which is why I'm still here.

    3. I'm assuming you're talking about direct report managers, not on up the chain. I've never had a "bad" manager, but that's a loaded question. I know a lot of outstanding supervisors that are not good managers. And vise versa.

      1. Direct report indeed, I’m also using manage and supervise interchangeably, I realize that’s a bit messy but oh well.

      2. I would argue they get the wrong training. Such as "how to make friends and influence people". Much of the training out there is about manipulation. The training is based upon a mindset that your underlings are assets to be managed or manipulated. Best training I ever got was The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Covey. It was more about personal growth and communication. How to listen effectively. More about who you are, what your motives are, and how others view you and your actions. I received that training 25 years ago and still use it all to this day. It is the basis of how I develop leaders around me.

    6. Loaded question. I have had a lot of supervisors or managers before opening the joint. None were horrible and none were perfect. I guess I always try the learn from the things they do well and discard the things they struggle at. I think a lot of employees could be treated like gold 90% of the time, but the few times you give them constructive criticism you are "all over their case!" I gauge my employees happiness (and my effectiveness) on turnover. If I am losing above average employees I need to look in the mirror. If I am only losing the below average employees I am probably in a good spot.

    7. I'd say I've had two managers I would say weren't good. Most have been mediocre. But I've seen many, many bad ones.

    8. 80% seems high.

      I've had a truly awful manager (case in point, to use Zoom's criteria, the guy could not keep his staff, and at one point lost somewhere around 50% of them in a year (or a little more... this included myself leaving in the middle, so I don't know exactly) Some of those were "let go" but for reasons that were entirely on the manager).

      I've had people who are bad at it, but for lack of training, and could be good if they had an opportunity to learn the relevant communication skills (the manager who openly said "Well I wasn't going to tell you what to do.")

      And I've had several middling or good managers, who are... generally unremarkable when things are going right. The fact that we don't comment much about them makes me think there's a selection bias at play here, where you really notice the bad, but don't notice the good - kind of like umps.

      1. Turnabout is fair play. I have had my fair share of poor staff whom I could not motivate to take ownership of their jobs and opportunities and who lacked interest in both getting better and thinking critically.

        I came out of academia, where not everyone is all that brilliant, but most people at least have some intellectual curiosity. In gubmint, finding employees who are ambitious to do well by doing good is...challenging.

        I am not the best motivator, I guess. I'm not a rah-rah guy and not super great with attaboys/attagirls. Some of my staff see me as intellectually intimidating. But I am actually a pretty soft touch and, I think, very approachable when people need help.

        I will agree that (in my experience) managers/supervisors get little training and that most of the required stuff is crap. And...the same is true for line staff. We suck at professional development, in significant part because state government (or rather, state legislatures) do not value it.

    9. Had a lot of bad ones but it doesn’t approach 80%.

      I had been looking for an excuse to leave BB for quite a while and last month did so largely because I couldn’t spend another day with a dipshit sales lead who wasn’t sucking any less after three months. I was so complacent for so long. He should be proud of how much he sucked.

  6. Twayn - are you heading up to Vinnie's labor day weekend? We are dropping of Kid 1 at U of M, then possibly driving up to UMD to visit Kid 2. We may head over to Hayward for a day to see the old crew.

    1. I hadn't heard about it. Can you get me details? Email is my moniker at comcast dot net. Also, do you know anything about a party at the house this weekend? It may be the last one at the original homestead.

      1. Will do on the forwarding of info. Have not heard anything about a party this weekend at the house and unfortunately I am tied up with work and other stuff.

    1. It's that paltry $216 million payroll they have to overcome that lends credibility to the idea.

  9. Oh, air travel. My flight out of KC was delayed forty minutes, which isn't great when your layover is forty five minutes. Went to see what I could do and the gate agent told me I technically had seventeen minutes from the time my flight would get to the gate until the doors close in the next one in O'Hare. We both had a chuckle at that. He put me in an earlier flight, which I was immediately notified was delayed. (I've got plenty of time to catch my next flight, though)

    1. Last week my flight kept getting delayed until about 20 minutes after the next connecting flight. I got home at 2:45am instead of 7pm.

      1. I don't know what in the hell is going on out there, but this flight just got delayed another hour. I've still got two hours of padding for my next flight, but I'm confident this will be pushed back further.

          1. No thunderstorms? Because they just told us that was causing the number of flights allowed to land per hour to be limited.

    2. I made it to Chicago! The flight I was rebooked on that was scheduled to leave three hours before what I initially booked left about half an hour later than that original booking. Fortunately, when we landed in Chicago I got a text message saying my flight to Madison is delayed fifty minutes because the flight crew is on a delayed flight here.

      Travel is fun!

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